David Barr's Sarasota and Venice Real Estate Blog

Sarasota real estate statistics for 2nd Quarter 2019 are available.  The market continues to experience positive growth. Two categories are worth further analysis.  First, median time to contract increased 26% over last year.  I believe this is due to home buyers from up north cushioning or extending the closing date on their Florida property, so their current residence can sell.  This in return is affecting median time to sale. The second is median percent of original list price received.  There's a lot to dissect here.  Over priced listings aren't selling, and aren't reflected in this stat.  We call these expired listings.  If the property is priced according to the market, it's remained a steady 5% off list price for quite some time.  Every property is different, but use this number as a guide for what to expect. Contact me for expert pricing and marketing for your Sarasota area home for sale.

I recently put out some statistics for the Sarasota real estate market.  From real world experiences, I can tell you that the stats are somewhat misleading. I believe that prices, and the dollar volume of sold properties, is flat versus last year is because listing agents are overpricing homes for sale. Working with two sets of out of town home buyers over the past two weeks illustrates what's happening in the real world. In both cases, the buyers made offers on homes that had a recent, significant price reduction, one in Lakewood Ranch and another in Sarasota.  In both cases, the buyers were in multiple offer situations, after the homes had sat on the market for weeks. We are past income tax season, and with many of our area's home buyers coming from out of state and selling their homes up north, our local real estate market is experiencing a high level of home buyer activity. One piece of good news, particularly for home owners in Lakewood Ranch, is that the ...

I've blogged about this topic before.  If you are getting a mortgage for your vacation property, or are looking to buy as an investment, single family homes are the best bet compared to condos. View my analysis here:   http://www.davidbarrhomes.com/#!condo-versus-house-sarasota/c1tqw The carrying costs for single family homes versus condos (insurance, fees, maintenance) are roughly the same.  However, getting a mortgage for a condo is turning into a nightmare. Prepare for 30% down for a condo purchased as a vacation property.  Your interest rate will be higher if you are purchasing a condo as an investment property.  Add to this the fact that mortgage lenders are now sending questionnaires to condo association managers and asking for detailed financial statements before approving the mortgage.  One of my recent client's closing was delayed because the condo association did not reply to the intrusive questions from the lender in time. I probably don...